Defending My Mobster (BWWM Romance) (28 page)

“Yeah, just after you left. She was torn up about it, and then she came onto me. Maybe she thought I didn’t have taste.”

I chuckled. “Something gives me the idea you don’t really like her.”

“Can you tell?” he asked and smiled. “Honestly, though, I think you need to go back and talk to him. I think you’re fooling yourself thinking you can just carry on like nothing happened. And I think it’s unfair that you’re trying to get with another man when you’re so obviously head over heels for that one.”

“I’m sorry…” I said but Aaron shook his head.

“I meant unfair to yourself. I’m fine, I’m not going to get all torn up about it. I’ll always care about you, but not like that.”

“What if he doesn’t want me back? What if we can’t sort it out and fix it?”

“Then at least you’ll know for sure, instead of running away without having a lot of answers or any closure.”

I put my forehead on Aaron’s shoulder and sighed.

“I’m scared,” I said.

“I know. But this time you’ll have a place to come back to if it fails. And if it doesn’t, you’ll have a home.”

We sat together for a short while longer, and then he got up and left. I was alone in the apartment, and I sat on the couch, staring at the coffee stain on the carpet for a long time before I finally got up and got ready for bed. Just before I crawled under the covers I headed to the kitchen and took the packet of pills out of the cabinet. I read the instructions and took them, swallowing them down.

If I was going to do this, I had to do this right.

Chapter 10 - Noah

A hell of a storm raged outside, with rain rapping furiously against the windows like it was begging to drive into the house, too. The rain was welcome, things had been running dry for a while. But it could turn into something worse, and I didn’t need extra complications.

One of my breeding bulls had gotten into a fight and it looked bad. The vet was supposed to come out again today, but with this weather I doubted he would make it. If the rain carried on like this, the road would be flooded close to the ranch entrance, and the vet wouldn’t get past.

That was if he even made it out in the first place.

I swore and stomped around the kitchen. I had nothing to do but wait it out, and I was getting impatient. I didn’t like having nothing to do. I had to keep distracting my mind if I didn’t want to think about Tamika.

She’d left again. And she’d been pregnant again, probably, although this time I didn’t know for sure. She hadn’t told me the verdict. I prayed for her sake that her period had just been late, and it hadn’t been anything more than that.

I didn’t want her to go through all that again.

I paced the kitchen. I stopped in front of the fridge and opened the cabinet above it, eyeing the bottle of Jack. It was an answer… I shook my head. It was just another door to a life I didn’t want. After I’d woken up at O’Malley’s with a headache that felt like a thousand chisels against my skull I’d crawled out of there. Jake had been real nice about it, not saying something or making it feel like a twisted walk of shame. I’d come home and realized that alcohol would be the death of me if I didn’t watch out.

Losing Tamika again was also a life I didn’t want, but that was something I obviously hadn’t been able to help before, and couldn’t help again. I closed the cabinet door. I could beat this. I didn’t have to drink to deal with anything.

Why did I feel like that statement wasn’t true?

The wind blew the rain against the house in waves. I sat down at the kitchen table and drummed my fingers on the wood. I heard the front door slam and frowned. I got up and walked down the passage.

Vanessa stood in my hallway. Her clothes were dripping with rain water and her hair was plastered to her face. Her makeup was smudged like raccoon eyes and her skin had red blotches on it from the cold.

“What are you doing out in this weather?” I asked.

“I left Kerrville before it got this bad, I just thought it was a bit of light rain. By the time I realized it was getting worse and worse I was too far to turn back.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked. I hadn’t seen her since we’d broken it off almost three weeks ago. I’d hoped that I wouldn’t see her again, in fact. I’d already had to sit with the knowledge that I’d ruined one woman’s life. I didn’t want to see that I’d ruined another one’s.

“Oh, I think I left a file here. I’ve looked everywhere, and I can’t find it anywhere. This is the last place it could be.”

I sighed and gave in. It was something important, and I couldn’t just kick her out into the storm anyway. Either we she’d have to wait it out until the worst blew over.

“Go on through to the bathroom. The help put clean towels in the cabinet. I’ll bring you something you can wear until your clothes are dry.” I looked at her dress suit. It was soaked, and I doubted it would dry well. It looked like the kind you had to dry-clean.

Vanessa went through to the bathroom, leaving wet footprints behind. In the bedroom I found a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants with a drawstring that would stay up despite the fact that it would be way too big for her. I took the pile of clothes and put it down outside the bathroom door.

I walked back to the kitchen and put the kettle on. I might just as well have offered her tea. By the looks of things she was going to be around for a while.

The front door slammed again, and I threw my arms up. Was I going to entertain the whole of Ingram in this storm? If I had to it had damn well be the vet. At least he would have a good reason to sit in my kitchen and wait for the storm.

Maybe I could even get him to the barn in this weather.

I walked to the front door. It wasn’t the vet standing dripping in my hallway.

It was Tamika. Her skin glistened with the wetness of the rain. She wore jeans and a collared blouse, and sneakers. She was soaked too, but she made it look classy.

I was frozen in the doorway. She was like a mirage. She looked at me, her eyes deep and hypnotizing, and I didn’t know what to say or do.

“Noah,” she breathed. She was emotional, her business mask forgotten. She looked like the Tamika I knew. It was like the past had come back perfectly to give me another shot. Or another hit. I wasn’t sure which yet.

“Did you put away any of the papers in the cabinet? I think my file might be in there,” Vanessa said behind me. Tamika looked over my shoulder, and looked Vanessa up and down. When I turned, Vanessa’s hair was damp, towel-dried, and she wore my clothes. She looked like she’d just gotten out the shower.

“Oh… Tamika,” Vanessa said when she saw her. She looked at me.

“I didn’t realize this was a bad time,” Tamika said, her voice like ice, and when I looked at her again she was closed and stone cold. She’d blocked me out again. The glimpse of the girl I loved had only lasted a moment. How many times was she going to let me in only to push me out again?

“This isn’t what you think..." I started but Tamika turned around and walked out the front door again, slamming it behind her. She couldn’t go out in that storm. She was crazy to come here in the first place. I stormed after her, yanking open the door. The weather hit me in the face with its force.

“Noah!” Vanessa called after me, but I didn’t care.

“Stay inside. I’m not going to run after you too,” I snapped at her. The door closed behind me, falling shut on an expression on her face that I didn’t care to decipher.

Tamika was here in a small white car. Another rental, I guessed. She’d clambered into the car and she was reversing out now, pulling back up the driveway that led to the gate. I could barely see the end of the garden that surrounded the house through the sheets of rain. It was dangerous to drive and wind rushed past me in waves.

“Tamika!” I shouted but she couldn’t hear me. I watched as she peeled out. A heavy gust of wind shook past me and I took a few steps to the side, trying to keep my balance. The storm was turning dangerous. The little car swerved on the road.

I took off after her. The rain beat against my face like needles, and I was soaked to the bone in a matter of seconds. I couldn’t see the car anymore. I knew I was crazy, but I would run all the way to the gate if I had to. Maybe even further.

When I rounded the bend the road in front of me was empty. I looked toward the gate. She was gone.

I was just about to turn back when something caught my eye to the side. The car's taillights were visible, but the rest of the car was in a ditch, nose first. All the air sucked out of my chest and my world spun. I bolted for the car, slipping on the mud twice before I reached it. I scrambled into the ditch. It was muddy and half full of water from the storm. Inside Tamika’s head was on the steering wheel. I hammered on the window but she wasn’t moving.

I tried to open the door, but the water made it hard to open. When I managed to pry it open the water swirled into the car and filled it. Tamika’s eyes were closed and blood streamed over her face. She made small whimpering noises, but I wasn’t sure if she was conscious.

I tried to undo the seatbelt but it wouldn’t budge. I took out the pocketknife I carried on me and cut it loose. Her body was limp when I pulled her out, and I hoisted her onto my shoulder. I didn’t know what was wrong, just that she wasn’t moving.

I managed to get her back to the house, but she was deadweight and the wind and the rain didn’t help. I slipped a couple of times in the mud, landing on my knees twice, but I managed. It didn’t matter what it took, I had to take care of her.

“Call an ambulance,” I said to Vanessa when I finally managed to get back into the house. I let Tamika slide to the floor, guiding her down. She wasn’t moving. I held my ear close to her mouth. She was breathing but it was shallow. If she hadn’t been unconscious before, she definitely was now.

“They’ll come as soon as they can with this weather,” Vanessa said, pulling her cellphone away from her ear. “Get her onto the bed. Let me help.”

Together we managed to move Tamika. I was relieved Vanessa was there to help me. For the first time in weeks she didn’t look like she was going to freak out. Maybe it wasn’t as emotional for her as for me. I felt like my world was spiraling out of control.
 

When Tamika was on the bed, Vanessa found a washcloth. She was the one that cleaned up her face and made sure she had blankets.

“Shouldn’t we get the wet clothes off her?” I asked, but Vanessa shook her head.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with her, I don’t know if it’s safe to do that.”

I nodded. I crawled onto the bed next to her, and curled up in a ball, my face close to hers. Vanessa looked at me.

“You really love her, don’t you?” she asked. I didn’t know how to answer that. It was something I hadn’t admitted to in years, but seeing her like this on the bed, fragile, reduced to a lifeless shell, I was starting to think I’d been a fool denying it all these years.

“I don’t know how to make up for everything I did wrong,” I said. I meant it in every way. Everything I’d done to Tamika. Everything I’d done to Vanessa.

“I’m not going to pretend like I didn’t want things to work out between us,” Vanessa said. “But I do know that in all the time we’ve been dating you never looked at me the way you look at her. Call me selfish, but I want that. And if I can’t get it from you maybe it’s not such a bad thing we broke up.”

She was being very reasonable about it. Too reasonable. I’d thought she would be screaming and crying when it came down to the topic of what happened between us.

“I still think you were a dick,” she said outright. There it was. “But I don’t blame you for it as much as I did until now. I’m starting to get what’s going on.”

“It’s not that I didn’t care for you,” I said. I didn’t want her to feel that I’d thrown her away.

“How I feel about that doesn’t matter right now. What matters is the fact that she might not be okay. We need to get her to a hospital.” The conversation was over. I still wasn’t sure if she was angry at me or not.

Vanessa walked out of the room. I closed my eyes and lay next to Tamika, hoping, praying, that everything would be alright. A while later Vanessa came in with coffee for me.

“You need to get warm and dry. You’ll be no use if you get sick on top of everything.” She was right. I changed into dry clothes and drank the coffee, even though it wasn’t good. The storm carried on raging outside. When was it going to stop?

Vanessa sat with me. Tamika still wasn’t waking up. I let out a shaky breath.